Hilton Honors, the loyalty program for Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, DoubleTree and Hilton hotels among others, is currently running a promotion offering double points on stays until the end of 2017.
For our full article on that promotion – click here.
In recent days an interesting alternative offer has launched courtesy of British Airways Executive Club. But does it do enough to tempt you away from the Double points deal?
Background
When staying at hotels in the Hilton chain you have a choice to make when it comes to earning rewards:
- Points & Points – this gives you 10 base Hilton Honors points plus 5 bonus points per $1 spent.
- Points & Miles – this gives you 10 base Hilton Honors points plus 1 airline mile per $1 spent.
Under the double points deal that is active at the moment, you would earn a compelling 20 base Hilton Honors points plus 5 bonus points per $1 spent! And that’s before you factor in any extra status bonuses awarded to Hilton Honors members.
The American Express Platinum card, for example, offers complimentary Hilton Honors Gold status. A Gold member would automatically earn at least a 25% bonus on all base points earned.
New Triple Avios offer details
British Airways has revealed a Triple Avios offer that runs all the way through until the end of January 2018. Under this offer, you would be eligible to receive 10 base Hilton Honors points and 3 Avios per $1 spent. The deal is very simple:
- Set your earning preference to Points & Miles
- Select British Airways Executive Club as your preferred airline partner.
- Register for the Triple Avios offer here
Can you do even better?
I have explained in the past that you can earn and move Avios freely via a number of different schemes, one of those being Iberia Plus.
If you haven’t already done so, take a minute of your time and sign-up to Iberia Plus (registration link here) today. There are fairly regular Avios-earning opportunities unique to Iberia Plus. In order to use the Combine My Avios tool to then move any Avios earned to BA Executive Club, your Iberia account must be ‘active’. This requires you to have earned at least 1 Avios in your Iberia account and your account to have been open for at least 90 days.
Iberia is also an airline partner with Hilton Honors and their partnership offers an interesting Avios quirk.
When you choose Points & Miles and select Iberia Plus you will earn the usual 10 base Hilton Honors points plus 1.5 Avios per $1 spent. Does that mean you should credit all Hilton stays to Iberia Plus instead of BA Executive Club?
Not necessarily. Unlike the BA Executive Club tie-up, there is a 1,000 Avios per stay cap when crediting to Iberia. That means that for cheaper stays (where you aren’t in danger of exceeding the cap) you should go with Iberia, as that would earn you 1.5 Avios per $1 compared to just 1 Avios per $1 with BA.
On more expensive stays, however, you should always select BA Executive Club, which despite ‘only’ earning 1 Avios per $1, would allow you to exceed Iberia’s cap and earn up to 10,000 Avios per stay.
How to maximise your earnings?
Iberia Plus is also running a Triple Avios offer this winter. That means there is the potential to earn 4.5 Avios per $1 spent (normal 1.5 Avios x 3 ) – that is a great return.
On inexpensive stays, you should select Iberia Plus as your preferred airline. Unfortunately, the T&C’s are very unclear though on whether any bonus Avios must be included in the 1,000 Avios cap or can exceed it. It is therefore difficult to say exactly at what spend threshold you should ‘move’ stays over to BA Executive Club.
Registration
You must register for these offers before your first stay in order to receive bonus miles.
The registration page for the BA offer can be found here.
The Iberia version can be found here.
Remember to ensure that your profile is set to earn Points & Miles and that you have inputted your BA/Iberia membership details.
You can then visit Hilton.com and book as normal. Bonus Avios will be awarded automatically within 4-6 weeks of the stay.
Registration is open throughout the promotional period, which ends on 30th January 2018.
Verdict
If you have a healthy Hilton Honors points balance or aren’t particularly keen on chasing them in general, this promotion offers a decent alternative. I would recommend taking 30 seconds to register for this promotion today even if you have no Hilton stays planned. As this offer runs for quite a few months, you may well find yourself with an unexpected stay between now and January.
Another tip is to try registering for both the Double points and Triple Avios offers. I have in the past received both Double points and Triple miles after I signed up to both promotions – although there is, of course, no guarantee of that happening.